Monday, January 31, 2011

When our daughter, Casey, graduated from college last month, we gave her a choice: we fly to Asheville for the ceremony or you and your French boyfriend fly to the Bahamas when we get there. She's a smart girl.

She rocked out a Bachelor of Arts with a major in French at University of North Carolina, Asheville, including two semesters at Université Catholique de l'Ouest in Angers, France. We sent her off to France, all of us weeping, a wide-eyed 20-year-old. She came home 10 months later, worldwise, sophisticated and beautifully fluent en Français.

To say we're proud of her sounds trite. To say more risks melting into a maudlin puddle. Let's just say she has grown up into the kind of woman I feel honored to count as a friend, witty, wise, intelligent, spiritual, talented, articulate, thoughtful, soul-deep beautiful, exactly the kind of woman you wish your daughter would grow up to be.

Our graduation gift to her begins today when she flies into Nassau from Miami with her boyfriend Remi to spend two weeks with us lolling around the Exumas, a well-deserved treat after years of study.

To say we were all excited does not in any way capture the moment. This might:

Remi and Casey being escorted to Cara Mia by the fine crew of S/V Malaika.

The entire anchorage rose to the occasion, planning a picnic and bonfire on a private beach for our two honored guests.

Thursday, January 27, 2011

With three days to go before our guests arrive (daughter, Casey, and her boyfriend Remi from France), we have abandoned bustling Nassau for an idyllic anchorage in the fun and often raucous company of our friends Annie and Eric on WeBeSailing and Yan and Eveline on Rêve d'Oceans.

Even I am weary of me saying, "We've arrived," but this is our first time to anchor in the Bahamas where we can check our anchor through 10 feet of glass-clear water.

Tuesday, January 25, 2011

Provisioning is such a conundrum for us as first-time cruisers. When we left North Carolina, our philosophy was, "people eat everywhere, don't over-provision." As we headed south, everyone we met who had cruised in the Bahamas told us, "cram your boat with as much food as it will hold." Apparently once we get to the out islands, provisions are few and expensive.

We stocked up marginally along the way. I was craving a last-minute shopping spree in Miami, which I never indulged. I regretted it immediately. We'll see how things turn out.

My biggest concern is that we will be having guests on board for at least two weeks. Our daughter, Casey, and her boyfriend Remi from France will be joining us in the Exumas. I don't even know how to provision for two, much less four!

We pulled out all the food we have onboard to judge what we needed in Nassau.

Wow, I don't look like I'm having fun, do I?

The high cost of provisions in Nassau has been well-covered in the blogosphere, including recently by our friends on Kaleo.

In an effort to mix it up, I thought I'd show you some of the things that are actually the same price or cheaper here.

The grocery store near the marina is well-stocked and not as expensive as I imagined. Okay, that Fanta soda is a little pricey! You just have to be selective. Our friend Annie tells us if it's about double the price we pay at home, it's a good deal.

Price aside, I'm hoping for one last trip for fresh produce when we pick the kids up on Sunday.

Sunday, January 23, 2011

Annie and Eric on WeBeSailing headed into Nassau yesterday for a reason, not to meet us, but to celebrate Annie's birthday today! It is just a ridiculously happy coincidence that we all converged at the exact moment at the entrance to Nassau harbor.

So what do you give a sailor girl for her birthday? I was so thrilled by the homemade wishes from Karen and Dale, it seemed appropriate to pass along the good feeling.

Chip and I, with the help of Alix onboard Oasis, crafted a birthday wish on the dock while Annie was at the market.

Saturday, January 22, 2011

[[WARNING: This might be a long post. However, trust me, it is nothing compared to the length of this passage.]]

We've arrived! We're in the Bahamas!

My focus on crossing the Gulf Stream was so intent that it overtook all else, including the next step, which unfortunately is a big one. Bimini is sort of out here on its own, a nice stopover. The passage to Nassau requires a 10-hour hike across the Bahama bank, passing through the narrow Northwest Channel, then across the ridiculously deep Tongue of the Ocean, in total close to 125 miles, a 24-hour trek with no real stops in between.

Our longest passage to date was the 13-hour trip from Lake Worth to Miami, no overnighters. Looking ahead at this passage was not necessarily daunting, but one we approached with respect.

We had a plan. And then we changed it.

Based on weather info and good advice, we decided to leave Bimini at dawn on Friday morning for a 24-hour passage to Nassau.

Then all the other boats around us started leaving on Thursday.

When you're part of the Freshman cruisers class, you question everything, especially yourself. Decisions never make you feel 100% confident.

We mulled, questioned, talked to other boats, reevaluated and decided to leave at noon Thursday.

Two other boats in the Freshman class were doing the same thing and wanted to travel with us. They planned to head south out of Bimini through the very shallow Turtle Rocks and then possibly anchor at Chub Cay.

We decided instead to go north out of Bimini, to the North Rock waypoint through deep water (relatively). A one-hop jaunt, all 24-hours to arrive in Nassau by noon on Friday, well ahead of predicted weather on Saturday.

The two other boats decided to follow us, all agreeing that we were making our own decisions.

The three boats left Alice Town at 12:15 under the most perfect Bahamian skies and ridiculous blue water the color of heaven.

Heavenly blue off the western shore of Bimini.

Having finally "arrived" in the Bahamas, I donned my first bathing suit since leaving North Carolina last October. Out came the sunscreen, and I kicked back for six hours of sunlit Bahamian awesomeness.

We headed north along Bimini, a short 6-mile hop to North Rock after which we would turn east. As we approached the northern tip of Bimini, I noticed some clouds in the distance. In a few minutes, it looked more like this:

That's the northern tip of Bimini just under the fog.

A fog bank rolling right toward us. Fortunately the North Rock mark was still clearly visible.

North Rock waypoint, just north of Bimini.

We rounded North Rock and entered the mysterious fog, everything around us beyond 20 yards, invisible. At the time, I thought it was strange. We found out later that fog on the Bahama Banks is incredibly rare. Lucky us! On a positive note, it warded off sunburn.

I was glad we weren't picking our way through shallow waters on the southern passage. On the other hand, who knows if the fog bank reached that far south, something we'll never know.

Our two buddy boats behind us were in hailing distance but invisible to us. The three of us huddled closer together to make a better radar target to approaching boats. This made me remember that we never bought that fog horn. Ah, well, I imagined this fog would not last for long. Yeah, you know, I'm often wrong.

Fog Bank: entered 1:36. Exited 3:44

Oh so slowly, the fog lightened and the ghost ships behind us came into view.

Is there a boat there?

Ah, yes, there IS a boat there.

Lucky for me, I was on the 4 o'clock watch. YES. Before leaving the dock, I had worked out the following watch schedule thinking it played well into our individual biological clocks:

My watch went smoothly -- and beautifully. Literally. I dropped a line in the water and watched as the sun took full advantage of the wide open, horizon to horizon stage, sinking behind me in an unbroken panorama of pastel perfection.

Bahama Banks sunset.

At least I thought it was perfect until I saw the aftermath. Would that be pluperfect?

Twilight on the Bahama Banks.

The riot of gradation from violet to purple to peach made me want to print color swatches and revolutionize the fashion world. Instead I caught the photo and no fish.

Happy Chip making his long awaited Chef Boyardee for dinner.

Under a waning moon, I handed the helm over to Chip until my 11 p.m. watch. Chip's watch was uneventful weather wise, but tense and exciting traffic wise. One of our buddy boats, Island Moon, had AIS, a boat identification system, which provides detailed information on surrounding vessels, pinpointing them on the radar screen -- a radar screen extending far past anything we could pick up on our own radar.

During the dark of night heading across the shallow banks, several freighters approached on our same path. Island Moon hailed the first boat by name and alerted him to our presence. The captain answered and kindly changed his course. The next one hailed by name did not answer. And did not answer. He kept approaching, somewhere out there in darkness, silently barreling toward us.

Island Moon hailed him again, using his vessel name and destination. At long last, Chip tried one more time, "We don't want to talk to you. We just want a confirmation of a port to port pass."

He acknowledged us, and we passed port to port, changing my understanding of two ships passing in the night.

The playing field cleared of traffic in time for my 11 to 2 watch, but alas we approached the Northwest Channel, a narrow passage between two shoals after which the water quickly goes from 3 meters to 324 meters to over 2000 meters. Meters.

I was not really nervous about our approach. Pardon my ignorance. We were headed straight into wind on the nose and a rising tide coming straight at us as well. The wind was predicted to be a light 10-15, the tide unknown to us.

The swells started building a half mile or so before the Northwest Channel waypoint. Seconds after passing it, we entered the ominously named, Tongue of the Ocean. The swells got enormous and with the combination of swells and current coming toward me, the boat stalled. I thought I had lost steerage, a terrifying moment when the boat did not respond to my steering.

At the same moment our other buddy boat, Sail Away, hailed us, just as I looked to port and saw another boat only 50 or so yards away headed the same direction and being thrown high up into the air, slamming back down and up again, like a toy boat tossed about in a fast-moving stream.

Chip advised Ken on Sail Away to head back and anchor up. He was single handing and we were obviously in for a rough night. At that moment, we realized the boat beside us was Ken, because it started a slow pirouette, turning back toward the banks to anchor until dawn. Island Moon anchored as well, both later reporting a miserable and bumpy night.

My steerage problem slowly righted itself as the boat and her captain adjusted to the new conditions. For a few minutes, I asked Chip to step in to see what he could manage against the waves. He usually reads the waves better than I do and knows the right angle to meet them most comfortably.

As we cleared the shallow water and into the deep, the current eased but the swells did not. The wind was cranking straight on our nose a consistent 16 knots, gusting to 20, sometimes above. The swells were a regular big, big, small, small, small, big, big, the large ones coming over the bow, confirmation for which I found when I went below in the wee hours to find we had left the bathroom hatch slightly ajar. Oy.

The size of the seas meant we could not use the autopilot for fear of overworking it. Instead we opted to overwork ourselves. Thus began 10+ hours of wrangling through black seas, watching the radar for traffic, counting the minutes until the end of our watches. Immediately it was clear 3-hour watches were not possible, so we switched to 2 hours, 1-3, 3-5, 5-7.

During my 3-5 watch, I braced my feet firmly at the base of the helm, leaned over resting my elbows on my knees and my hands, on opposite rungs of the wheel. For two solid hours, I alternated the tension on the wheel, like two hours of weight lifting, holding us on course, watching as each tenth of a mile clicked by, murderously slowly, on the GPS.

I became obsessed with the projected arrival time, continually altering course in an attempt to shave even one minute off the glorious end of the trip.

At exactly 5 a.m., Chip took over. I fell onto the cockpit bench and dropped into two hours of exhausted sleep.

We hoped the swell would ease with the sunrise. It did not. The swell maintained itself all the way until we came into the lee of New Providence Island, our destination.

Exhausted and exhilarated, we hailed port control to request entry at a few minutes after 10 a.m. Instead we heard, Cara Mia, Cara Mia, this is WeBeSailing! Chip looked at me, "Did you hear that???!?!!!? It's WeBeSailing!"

I heard it but couldn't believe. In fact, Eric and Annie were quite coincidentally entering Nassau Harbor at the exact moment we were, them from the east, we from the northwest. We had not seen or talked to them since Vero Beach.

After 22 hours, the last 10 beating into waves, we pulled up to the dock at Nassau Yacht Haven and threw our lines to the welcoming hands of Eric and Annie.